Doctor Who_ Interference_ Book Two - Lawrence Miles [28]
Lost Boy started panicking. As she hit the floor, Sarah saw the Ogron tugging at the soldier’s arm, trying to wrench the gun away from him. The man was screaming, making a noise that suggested he was about to cry. Sarah glimpsed a blur of grey, Lost Boy’s fist swinging through the air. The screaming stopped.
Then the gunfire started in earnest. Sarah pressed her head against the floor. The other soldier had opened fire with his own gun, and the shots were zipping over Sarah’s head, impacting against the far wall of the console room. The man was whimpering, Sarah realised. He wasn’t any more used to actual combat than his partner. He was pressing down the trigger of the gun, forgetting to actually aim it.
Lost Boy was just out of his line of fire. There was another blur of grey, and a hint of burning cloth. Then everything went quiet.
Sarah swallowed, hard, and pulled herself up off the floor. The two soldiers were lying in a big black heap at the entrance to the corridor, and Lost Boy was kneeling over them, removing their weapons. One of the Ogron’s sleeves had been singed, but that was about the extent of the damage.
‘You said –’ Lost Boy began.
‘I know,’ Sarah told him. ‘Look, it’s not my fault if the TARDIS isn’t working properly. Blame the Doctor.’ Lost Boy offered her one of the guns. Sarah shook her head. ‘Did you… you know. Did you hit them… very hard?’
Lost Boy nudged one of the fallen men with his boot. ‘No. Sleep.’
‘They’re unconscious?’ Sarah tried her best to look cynical, but she suspected she didn’t have the right kind of face. ‘How do you do that, anyway?’
‘Hnn?’
‘Do you know how hard it is to knock a human being out cold without doing permanent damage? It’s almost impossible. Ask any doctor, he’ll tell you. But you aliens do it to people all the time. One touch, and they’re out like a light.’
‘Rrrh,’ said Lost Boy. Sarah interpreted this as Deep Ogron for ‘it’s a talent’.
She crossed the console room again, and circled the console, inspecting the controls as she passed them. ‘All right. Let’s see what we’re going to do with them. Where are the scanner controls these days? Let’s try… this one.’
She pressed a likely-looking switch on the console, the one that looked most like a TV control. It had always worked before. Besides, what was the worst that could happen? The TARDIS didn’t have a self-destruct system, although the Doctor had once claimed that it did have a pretend self-destruct system, just for scaring people.
Sure enough, part of the ceiling began to shimmer, and soon a three-dimensional image resolved itself up among the rafters, a hologram of the building outside the ship.
‘He’s beefed that up as well,’ Sarah noted. ‘I wonder if he’s got NICAM.’
On the ‘screen’, she saw the other men in black surrounding the TARDIS, a couple of them aiming weapons at the door, a few others trying to interrogate Kode.
‘It’s not my ship, though,’ Kode was explaining.
‘You came here to steal it,’ one of the soldiers insisted.
‘Well, yeah. But it was the woman’s idea. She’s the only one who can get into it.’
The man pointed his gun at Kode’s chest. ‘You try.’
Sarah saw Kode stare blankly at the man for a moment or two, probably listening to his receiver. Then he shrugged, and wandered over to the TARDIS. The men guarding the ship stood aside for him.
Sarah reached for the door control.
‘Nuh?’ asked Lost Boy.
‘Trust me,’ Sarah told him.
Outside, Kode started running his fingers across the TARDIS, paying special attention to the lock. After a while, he pushed against the door. Nothing happened.
‘See?’ Kode told the soldiers.
The man who was presumably the Saudi unit leader prodded him with the gun again. ‘You came here to steal it,’ he insisted.
‘I told you,’ Kode protested. ‘I just… oopf.’
Sarah looked up, in time